Overview
Proton is a high-performance SQL stream processing engine developed by TimePlus and delivered as a single C++ binary. It focuses on low-latency, high-throughput stream processing and real-time analytics in resource-constrained environments. Proton combines stream processing, metric aggregation, and observability capabilities in one runtime, supporting SQL-like query syntax, windowing, and stateful computations to enable engineering teams to build real-time data pipelines and analytical tasks with familiar SQL semantics.
Key Features
- Single-binary deployment with minimal runtime dependencies for easy delivery and upgrades.
- Native SQL support for streaming queries, window functions, and aggregations to lower the learning curve.
- Optimized parallel execution and serialization for low latency and high throughput.
- Integrations with Kafka, Iceberg, ClickHouse and other common components to fit existing data platforms.
Use Cases
- Real-time metrics and alerting: process logs and metrics streams online and trigger alerts.
- Stream ETL: clean, aggregate and route data before persisting to storage.
- Unified observability and log analytics: combine real-time streams with offline data for rapid investigation and analysis.
Technical Highlights
- Implemented in C++ for execution efficiency and low resource usage, suitable for high-performance scenarios.
- Provides multiple input/output connectors to integrate with Kafka, Iceberg and other ecosystems.
- Licensed under Apache-2.0, making it suitable for production use and extension in enterprise environments.